🚨 How to Spot a Rug Pull in Under 5 Minutes — Free Checklist Inside
Most crypto traders have no idea what they're actually buying.
They see a pumping chart, a Telegram full of hype, and a tweet saying "contract renounced 🔒" — and they ape in. Then the rug happens, and they're left wondering how they missed it.
Here's the truth: every rug pull leaves fingerprints in the smart contract. You just have to know where to look.
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The 5 Red Flags That Appear Before Every Rug
1. Unrestricted Mint Function
If the owner can mint new tokens at any time with no cap, they can inflate supply 1000x and dump everything into your liquidity pool. This is the most common instant-rug mechanic.
How to check: Open the contract on Etherscan → Ctrl+F for "mint" → if there's no require statement limiting total supply, it's a red flag.
2. Ownership Not Actually Renounced
Projects claim "ownership renounced" in their Telegram all the time. Many are lying. A real renounce transfers ownership to the zero address (0x000...0000). Anything else is not renounced.
How to check: Contract → Read Contract → owner() → must return 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
3. Honeypot Sell Block
You can buy but you can never sell. The contract silently reverts your sell transactions while the dev and whitelisted wallets exit freely.
How to check: Run the token address through Honeypot.is before you buy. If IsHoneypot = true, walk away.
4. Adjustable Fees With No Cap
The dev sets sell tax at 5% at launch — looks normal. Then quietly raises it to 99% over two weeks. Now you can't exit without losing everything.
How to check: Search contract source for "setFee" or "updateTax" — if it exists with no require cap, the dev controls your exit price.
5. Unlocked Liquidity
The dev holds the LP tokens. The moment they pull liquidity, your token crashes to $0.
How to check: Look up the LP token holders on Etherscan — the majority should be held by a verified lock contract (Unicrypt, PinkLock), not the deployer wallet.
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The Bottom Line
Every one of these red flags is readable on-chain before you invest a single dollar. The only thing standing between your capital and a rug is knowing how to look.
This course teaches the complete scanning workflow — from opening Etherscan for the first time to running 20+ contract scans per hour.
1-day free trial. Lock in your spot: https://whop.com/checkout/plan_CcZiSyGEqQJWV